No matter how worthy the purpose, falsehood is falsehood. Is it really such good education for your children to demonstrate that lying should be used to obtain the important things in life?
Would it be moral, do you think, for a parent in Nazi German to lie when asked if their child was half Jewish in order to prevent the child from being taken away to the concentration camps? In my mind, it would -- and it would be a good lesson for the child: that truth is LESS important than saving a human life.
Now suppose that the situation were more starkly clear-cut than it is here. Suppose that the jack-booted thugs knocked on the door and demanded to know whether your child was A or B. If A, then the child would get an excellent education and have an opportunity to demonstrate their potential in life. If B, then the child would receive no education beyond 5th grade and would be prohibited for the remainder of their life from making a living in any profession other than drug dealer. I don't know about you, but in this case too I would think it moral to lie and claim A when the child was actually B. This lie hurts no one, and it saves a human's potential, if not technically their life. I even think it would make a good life lesson for the child.
What about this case? The extremists may think that the choice of urban or suburban school IS a case of "chance in life" vs "drug dealer", but the reality is much less clear cut. Some people who attend poor urban schools DO succeed in spite of the disadvantages. But many more of them do not. The lie may not be justified in this case. But if you agreed with me on one or both of the hypothetical cases above, then you should see that it is a matter of degree, NOT a stark absolute -- a decision that requires careful consideration of the degree of institutional injustice that your lie serves to combat, and a decision that persons of wisdom and ethics may disagree on.
If the only justification for doing something illegal is that sometime during WW2 someone might have had to do something similar in order to escape Hitler, I'd say that's a pretty weak justification. The continuum you suggest does exist, but it's a very lopsided distribution in this case.
Since you are purporting that falsehood is never wrong...
exodus 1:15-20 (NRSV)
The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, ‘When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.’ But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, ‘Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?’ The midwives said to Pharaoh, ‘Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.’ So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong.
tl;dr : The king told midwives to kill baby boys. The midwives did not. When asked by the king why the boys still lived, they lied.
No, I'm not purporting that "falsehood is never wrong" (you meant "never right", I suppose). In context, I was talking about falsification of records with an intention to obtain educational benefits otherwise disallowed.
It's not OK to falsify records in order to get into a better school without paying extra; look at the original post, that's what the argument was about. Taking a subsequent phrase out of context and stretching it to bring in baby killing is not exactly adding to the conversation.
Agreed. I used the passage not to equate the two but to illustrate moral issues are not always straight forward. I personally am not sure that lying your way to a better school is the right approach.
In all seriousness though, this passage was a big point of discussion in the middle ages. Many were uncomfortable with the midwives apparently being rewarded for lying. One solution was although they were rewarded they were not rewarded as much as they would have been if they had not lied.
My interpretation: The midwives lied in the service of life; the God of this passage rewarded them. Therefore, the God of this passage is a God of life. He does not support needless destruction and is willing to allow his servants to lie if life increases as a result.
> "The case you are building is not rock solid :)"
Unfortunately, with Biblical Studies it is impossible to build a rock solid case. There is always another persuasive argument just around the corner!
